Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus which generates a path plan for a mobile body.
Description of the Related Art
As techniques for generating a path plan for a mobile body, conventionally, a Dijkstra's algorithm, a probabilistic roadmap method, a rapidly-exploring random tree (RRT) algorithm, a potential method, etc. are generally known.
These techniques individually have advantages and disadvantages. It is often difficult in various kinds of situations to generate a path plan that allows a mobile body to move appropriately.
For example, with the RRT algorithm, in a case where there is a mobile obstacle in an operating environment of the mobile body, it may be difficult to dynamically generate a path plan having high stability in response to a change in moving state of the mobile obstacle.
Further, for example, with the potential method, in a case where there occurs a situation where the potential value of the potential field locally becomes extremely small, it is highly likely that the path plan cannot be corrected appropriately.
As a technique for solving the problems of the conventional techniques as described above, a technique as described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2009-211571, for example, has been proposed. With this technique, first, a basic path plan is generated in accordance with the RRT algorithm. Further, with respect to a multi mass point system in which the nodes in the basic path plan are regarded as mass points, a plurality of constraints regarding forces acting on the mass points are set. A dynamic simulation in the multi mass point system is then carried out, to generate a path plan that may fulfill the constraints.